When I parked at Stonyvale, there was only one other car their. It belonged to two ladies who said that they had tried to go up the Grizzly Flat trail, but got turned back when the path petered out in the creek bed. They were leaving for something more promising. Ugh. An inauspicious start. But I figured I was there so I may as well see if I could find my way through.
So I followed the obvious path for a short distance before sure enough, I came to a place where the path seemingly disappeared into the creek and an overgrown tangle of plant growth. This must have been the place where the ladies from the parking lot called it quits. But the guy on All Trails who posted just 8 days ago said he was able to go all the way to the ridge, so I figured maybe I was on the wrong side of Big Tujunga Creek. So I found a place to cross, bashed through some brush, and immediately picked up the tread again.
The trail here in the lower section hugs and then crosses the creek a couple of times and is a little overgrown in spots, but nothing terrible. I saw poison oak, but it was avoidable (I think - check back with me in a couple of days).
Eventually, the trail crosses Vasquez Creek just below Grizzly Flat. Here, I heard rustling in the brush up ahead and figured I was maybe going to have an encounter with Ursus Americanus. I started clapping and making noise, and then two guys came around the corner. I wasn't expecting to see anybody because the parking lot at Stoneyvale was empty, so I was surprised to see them. I also felt like an dork for hooting and hollering and clapping my hands to ward off the non-existent bear. The guys said they went to Grizzly Flat but not further because they were tired of bush-whacking.
I kept going and almost immediately popped out at Grizzly Flat where things opened up a bit on account of the fact that I was now on Grizzly Flat Road. It wasn't entirely smooth sailing to the ridge (it was still quite brushy in places and there were a number of downed trees to negotiate), but the tread was wider here which made travel easier. A short while later, I topped out on the ridge where I stripped off my shirt for a tick check and had a snack while enjoying the view back into Grizzly Flat and Big Tujunga Canyon. Fortunately, no one came by while I was on the ridge shirtless. Otherwise, their retinas would have been burned.
